From the Principal
Last night’s Secondary School Ensemble Concert was just incredible. The singers, musicians, conductors, event organisers, technicians, the weather and our magnificent Gloucester Lawn all combined to deliver a sensational, albeit mildly chilly, finale to the term. Thank you to the students and staff for the many hours you dedicate to your craft and thank you to their biggest fans – our dedicated Music Support Group, parents and carers – for being such engaged supporters of your daughters’ gifts and talents. We are very proud of our Music Program, which is a credit to our Pymble family.
Family has been on my mind for the past couple of weeks, as I have been reflecting on time spent recently with our Boarding community in country NSW. When speaking to students about this experience, I asked them to raise their hands if they have been to a couple of the 11 stops Matt and I made on this trip, and then to raise their hands if they had been to Europe. It was interesting to note most students have visited Europe, but only a handful have seen Bourke or Nyngan. As you head into the holidays or consider planning your next family vacation, you might like to consider showing your children parts of our beautiful country that they have never experienced before. There are so many unique and fascinating things to see, do and learn about in our own backyard; you would also be doing a wonderful thing by investing in regional and rural Australia.
Before we say farewell for our two-week break, I wanted to give a huge shout-out to our girls for their willingness to embrace all the opportunities on offer in Term 1.
The culture of ‘having a go’ is an important component of learning at Pymble. It has been wonderful to see Pymble Pulse in action this term, with students encouraging each other to show up and cheer on their friends and peers in their co-curricular sports and activities – not just for the wins and awards, but for having the courage to try new things and work on new skills. It’s been gratifying to see our student body come together in this way and demonstrate the strength and unity of our Pymble family.
Just as we have ‘written’ and ‘unwritten rules’ of what we expect of each other in our own families, so too is it important for our community to establish guidelines around how we expect each other to show up. We love how our community is always keen to give feedback and share with us the importance of our College values – in fact, our values are frequently highlighted by parents as one of the key reasons why you chose this school for your daughter(s).
Next term, we will be focusing on the development of our Pymble Values Project and looking to draft an agreement to define values-based expectations for all in our community: students, staff, parents, siblings and carers. Thank you in advance to our parent representatives who will be working with us on this agreement.
You’re invited to our inaugural Pymble Foundation annual update
We are delighted to see our Pymble family has grown this year with the introduction of three new students who recently arrived in Australia as refugees from Afghanistan. What a gift they are to our school community; we are learning so much from their courage, dignity and wisdom. Our four refugee girls’ education and place in our Pymble family have been made possible by our Pymble Foundation and our generous community. Our hope was to offer an additional two refugee students places at Pymble from 2025 but, sadly at this time, our Scholarship Fund does not have the surplus required. If supporting this program is of interest to you, please come along to our Pymble Foundation event on Wednesday May 1 2024, or feel free to contact our Foundation team directly, via Foundation@pymblelc.nsw.edu.au.
The event will include a Site Tour of the Grey House Precinct development, an update from our Foundation Chair, Mr Simon Rothery, and reflections from one of our new students from Afghanistan, and one of our First Nations Scholarships graduates. We hope to see you there.
Please click here to RSVP.
Finally, as we wish you a happy, safe and restorative break from routine with your loved ones, please enjoy this beautiful definition of ‘family’ from Oprah Winfrey. Thank you for your ongoing support of the College and all we do, and we look forward to welcoming our students back here for the first day of Term 2 on Tuesday 30 April.
“Family should be the place where you can be your most complete self. Where you’re accepted and appreciated, seen and valued, even in moments of disagreement. It should be your soft place to fall, the place where you’re reminded that no matter what happens to you, in the face of your deepest challenges, you are loved.”
Windows into Learning
A big thank you to our wonderful academic staff from Kindergarten to Year 12 who have been kindly sharing stories of lightbulb moments in learning across all areas of the College in Term 1. This week, it’s lovely to see one of our students celebrated for bringing an idea come to life, and to hear more details about a workshop with an award-winning writer at last week’s Sharing Stories Festival.
Junior School Wellbeing Day
“Earlier in Term 1, a student asked if I could supervise her Paper Recycling Club, which is her own initiative from an activity she saw during the holidays. Not only did she organise friends and others who were interested to join in, but she ran the whole rotation for her cohort during our recent Wellbeing Day. The support from her friends and the school allowed her idea to come alive and be shared and has already inspired a number of other students to come forward with their ideas. It was amazing to see a student confidently lead a new task, idea, and way of thinking to all those in Year 5.”
Mr Lachlan Pryor
Junior School Teacher
K-12 Sharing Stories Festival – Author Workshop
“As part of the Sharing Stories Festival, best-selling author Tania Blanchard gave a fascinating talk on the process of writing historical fiction novels for Year 12 History Extension students and College staff. Tania explained that all her works (The Girl From Munich, Suitcase of Dreams, Letters From Berlin, Daughter of Calabria and A Woman of Courage) are inspired by her own family history. Family photographs often spark ideas, and she starts looking for relevant primary sources in the form of birth and death certificates, family letters, newspaper articles and oral accounts. She then embarks on secondary research to fill in details.
“Students asked inspired questions that stimulated some wonderful historical debate. Topics ranged from the validity of historical fiction as a form of investigating the past, to the balance between historical accuracy and the need to engage and entertain readers. The delicate question of unearthing family secrets was also broached.
“This was a valuable experience centred around one of the core foci of the Extension course: evaluating different approaches to history and the complexity of factors that shape historical interpretations.”
Ms Tessa Zwar
Head of Library and Research Services K-12
